Monday, June 28, 2010

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About 300 people gathered at West Beach on Sunday afternoon for Stand in the Sand, a gathering to support victims of the Gulf Oil Spill and raise public awareness. Members of the Chumash Nation greeted participants. Then, following a welcome by Mayor Helene Schneider, various community voices spoke on behalf of Santa Barbara’s environmental movement and about the need to recommit to sustainability, donate the resources we can and, promote changes in our energy policy.

Laura Tsunoda

Jean-Michel Cousteau

Jean-Michel Cousteau of the Ocean Futures Society spoke last, remembering the oil spills in Alaska and Spain as well as the disaster here in Santa Barbara when a rig ruptured just offshore in 1969. The incident is reminiscent of what’s happening on a larger scale in the Gulf today, and it gave birth to a fervent environmental and preservationist movement that was ancillary in paving the grassroots community that gathered at West Beach on Sunday.

Laura Tsunoda

Stand in the Sand

Cousteau relayed words his father told him: “People protect what they love,” he said, entreating the crowd to join him in fostering an understanding of the ocean. “How can you protect what you do not understand?” He has been twice to the Gulf, and will be going back on Tuesday to communicate with decision-makers, “We’re not pointing fingers — we’re all in the same bed, we’re all on the same planet,” he said.

Laura Tsunoda

Stand in the Sand

Ten local nonprofits, helmed by the Fund for Santa Barbara, sponsored Stand in the Sand. About nine booths set up near the stage, dispensing literature and circulating sign-up sheets.

At 3 p.m., participants — mostly clad in yellow (at the organizers’ request) — locked arms along the shoreline, forming a “human boom,” a symbol of solidarity against the BP Oil Spill and offshore drilling. Participants remained in position for about 10 minutes, instigating the occasional wave and later forming a circle.

Just as event organizers insisted, Stand in the Sand was neither a protest nor a rally, inspired not in anger but in sympathy.

Comments

I rode by there on my bike, it was a very touching and beautiful scene. Afterwords everyone got back in their car and drove home.The reality is that everything we eat,touch,and even the plastic in my I -Phone uses oil and oil related products The US requires 20 million barrels of oil a day for cars,planes and industrial use and there's nothing on the horizon to replace that need.Drilling for oil can be safe, BP has a history of cutting corners on safety. for that they should be punished. But unless we're going to back to rendering whale blubber the age of oil is here for along time.

[Not anonymously] I am sure, CManSB, that the whale blubber pillagers of the age manipulated language as you do in your anonimous posting. "Humanity did not end the stone age because we ran out of stones"--we became smarter, we found a better way. Oil and natural gas pillagers have been preventing this critical shift at every step of the way. As Carpinterians used to say while fighting to defeat Venoco Inc's Measure J, in Carpinteria: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!!

I participated in Stand in the Sand. I did it with both a sense of solidarity with life in the Gulf and in anger of how our society still allows pillagers to destroy --lawfully-- our life support systems, our Biosphere. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!

mcheca, just curious: Did you ride a horse from Carp to get to West Beach in Santa Barbara? Was your keyboard made from wood ? I didn't think so, oil touches your life everyday. You didn't stop Veneco with Measure J, they'll still drill. BP was in deep water because they forced out that far by Government Regulations. Whaling didn't end because people held hands in Nantucket demanding it be stopped; It end when a cheaper and more plentiful alternative, oil, was discovered in Pennsylvania. The age of oil will end the same way, and that evil BP is developing that alternative right now, with DuPont, called Bio-Butanaol. It is made from bio-mass, not corn crops, and had the same thermal energy as petroleum fuels. When it cost less than gas to produce, we will have it and the evil oil companies will be the selling to us.It will be the free market, engineers and entrepreneurial companies that will end the age of oil, not a bunch of people holding hands on the beach.

The human boom, like all liberal events, did nothing and accomplished little more than a 'feel good.'

In the real world there are real oil booms and real oil skimming ships/boats. Of the TWO THOUSAND skimmers in the USA only TWENTY are deployed to the gulf. Know why? Obama said and I quote "The other skimmers may be needed for other oil spills." ARE YOU KIDDING ME????!!!! That's like saying we only sent one fire engine to that five alarm fire because there could be another fire. This is what we get haveing a community organizer as out POTUS.

Another fun fact, there were tens of miles of oil boom available in a Maine plant that the Obama administration refused to use because it was not a federally approved (ie UNION SHOP). This is beyond incompetence and I can only think Obama wants a crisis to pass Cap & Tax. Don't think so? I got an email from Dear Leader himself asking for money and support to pass Cap & Tax

Even the tight media control exerted by the donks in the administration let it get our that oil skimmers were sent back to port because of a lack of life vests and fire extinguishers. Did the smartest president in the universe and his administration bring out those items so the skimmers could continue the work? NO they sent them back and had another day where the oil could despoil the coast.

P.S. I feel for the birds being covered by the oil but every year an average small wind farm (500KW) kills between 600-800 Raptors every SINGLE YEAR.

I agree with CManSB in that the left is full of hypocrites that have ZERO experience in the real world of accomplishing goals. Sadly for the USA we now have one in the WH.

I'm afraid that CManSB has probably got it right. We can try to improve safety of everything from oil drilling to fracking for nat gas but until there is a reasonable alternative we are stuck with oil to some extent. However, I think it is a shame that our government( both sidea of the aisle have been weak on this issue IMHO although clearly the Republicans are less supportive of alt energy) has failed miserably to spend more money on R and R in alternative energy and that many countries in the world are way ahead or the U.S. We should be the absolute world leader in alternative energy technology because it is good for the environment and good for the economy.

jukin, your aside regarding avian mortality due to wind farms is completely false, and easily checked ("P.S. I feel for the birds being covered by the oil but every year an average small wind farm (500KW) kills between 600-800 Raptors every SINGLE YEAR.")

... paying particular attention to page 7 and the Discussion beginning page 10. The high estimate NATIONALLY in 2003 for raptors killed by wind turbines was 933.

By the way, the scale of bird mortality is tricky, when numbers are tossed around -- there's a lot of birds out there, and they find many ways to die. As this same study notes:

::: "Based on the estimates derived or reviewed in thispaper, annual bird mortality from anthropogenic sourcesmay easily approach 1 BILLION birds a year in the USalone (table 2). Buildings, power lines and cats areestimated to comprise approximately 82 percent of themortality,...[snip]

However, taking your assertion that a BILLION birds may die due to mankind, the birds that have dies from oil spills is a very, very small percentage. Hardly worth worrying about unless it fits an agenda to raise taxes and control every aspect of our lives.

Eric Cardenas is a person who stands behind his beliefs 100% & this I totally respect as well as admire. The key problem here is BP doesn't.Really, is a company w/ an attitude of arrogance & a ridiculously lax safety record such as BP seriously going to care what a bunch of people standing on a beach ~3,000 miles away have to say?Heck, they won't even listen to those standing on the beaches along the Gulf of Mexico!The reality is also that oil ain't going away any time soon, it is in everything we touch, as a precusrsor or finished product.The thing to walk away with here is a lesson on how our government deals w/ companies like BP & the hopes that said government puts aside favoritism for safety products, technology & services based on something as stupid as union ties.This mess is being handled HORRIBLY, not only by BP, but the government.By the way, oil is a natural, organic hydrocarbon, but it is the uncontrolled release that is messing things up, a release done by BP & sanctioned by our government :) henry

and, jukin, i would not get too excited about unused booms unless you are really desperate to assert your neocon hatred. i live in lower alabama and i'm here to tell you, booms don't do much in any weather at all. if any heads are to roll i think the man who displaced heavy mud with water should be the first

Rich, the booms were available to deploy about two weeks after the blowout when the weather was calm. If you think not deploying booms at even a 30% efficiency was the smart move then you are not.

The Obama administration's response has been horrendous even for a very inexperienced team. Sadly, the people of the gulf states are paying the price for having a community organizer in charges. That's not just me. A recent poll of the gulf states a significant majority of those people thing that Bush did better at Katrina than Obama on the spill.

Hank, You are so correct about BP"s attitude of arrogance: But they sure are a profitable arrogant company. If I had the foresight to Buy Exxon stock after they demolished the Prince William sound I could seen a 9000% return on investment. I for one will wait for BP to go below 15 per share and pull the trigger on a large buy order.